


L'appel Du Vide

by AltoidMint (InsomniacCyanide)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/M, Human Kiibo, Mentions of Suicide, because im not a Fan of the english localization, disappointing i know, hes not a robot in this one, i use Kiibo to refer to him, pls be wary, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 09:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12814137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsomniacCyanide/pseuds/AltoidMint
Summary: It’s the wild thumping in her chest when they eat lunch together on the roof, eyes always trailing between him and the edge of the building, where only a mere chain link fence separated them from the drop down to the concrete.The call to the edge is tempting.





	L'appel Du Vide

**L'appel Du Vide**

  
  


They sit beside one another with their knees knocking together. 

 

There’s always a certain rhythm to it.

 

It’s the rumble of the train when riding to and from school. It’s the sway of the leaves in the wind when they go off on their little adventures by themselves. It’s the wild thumping in her chest when they eat lunch together on the roof, eyes always trailing between him and the edge of the building, where only a mere chain link fence separated them from the drop down to the concrete.

 

Iruma doesn’t know how Kiibo feels about heights. She doesn’t know if he also feels the strange urge to simply tip over and let himself fall. She honestly hopes he doesn’t. What she does know that he tolerates her presence, and that’s more than she can really ask for. He lets her shout and yell and froth at the mouth, and he lets her cling to him incessantly, even if he gets exhausted from her easily. He still sticks around though, and that’s enough. 

 

They sit together on the train, her trailing after him like a lost puppy almost everywhere he goes, still claiming it’s the opposite anytime the topic comes up. She’d done it since they met on the first day of highschool, which made it normal, but no less annoying. He mainly stares out the window and watches the scenery fly by, humming absently in response to her continuous chattering about one thing or another. He always glances at her when she falls silent. 

 

She can’t help it as her eyes glaze over, fixated on the drop from the bridge they cross during their hour long commute. She knows he notices when and for how long she stays like this. He asks about it sometimes, curiosity on whether it was some sort of ritual to honor the dead, or if it were something else. She always finds a way to somehow change the subject, and he’d never get his answer. 

 

It’s not as if she didn’t want to tell him, she did, she really did. But the fear overtakes her everytime she tries to. She’s not supposed to think too hard about deep philosophical questions, that’s his job. She doesn’t want to make him freaked out, or worse, worried. She doesn’t want a lot of things. 

 

Recently, when she’d grow quiet during their commute, staring down into rushing water of the river around the rocks that was only there for a few short moments, he’d shake her shoulder. She’d pop out of her trance then, apologizing for it without actually having to say “I’m sorry.” The gratefulness doesn’t have to be said to be felt. At least, that’s what she hopes anyways. She was never truly good at expressing her feelings in a healthy or appropriate manner. 

 

And that worked for the both of them. She’d fall into a trance, staring off at whatever height she was transfixed by  _ now _ , and he’d shake her shoulder, and they’d fall back into their easy rhythm. It was nice. It was the nicest thing Iruma had experienced in a long time (that was partly her fault, her behavior was hard to put up with but once she started it wasn’t like she knew how to stop). And in turn, she ended up clinging to it more. This most likely only exasperated him further, as he’d shut down her more sexually charged rambles a lot faster than before. Even with that, though, he’d still let her talk. He’d give absent replies sure, but she knew he was at least halfway listening to what she was saying. 

 

When she does get serious, when what she’s trying to say actually matters, he listens intently, his face getting all serious in a way she finds incredibly cute. That wouldn’t be appropriate to say in the moment, however, but she can say it when he’s frowning down at his notes while she taps her pencil on his floor. No matter how many times she says it when she goes over to his house, he still gets incredibly startled by it. He’s a good friend. 

 

And even while she clings onto him more, goes home a lot later just so she can walk him home instead of continuing to ride the train back to her house, he’s still a good friend. He still lets her talk to him, he still lets her sit next to him as often as she does, and he still shakes her shoulder when she begins to space out. It often makes her wonder how many times she would’ve just fallen over and let herself drop had he not been there. It’s not like she  _ wants _ to fall! She doesn’t want to jump! She just gets the confusing, conflicting and maddening urge to. She’s already had a brush with her own demise, she’d already experienced the terrifying limbo between life and death, she’d already felt what it was like to have her blood splatter across the pavement. She  _ didn’t want to die _ . 

 

She has a bright future, she knows it, she’s too smart not to, and she wouldn’t want to throw that away to fulfill that stupid silly urge.

 

They talk often about their futures during lunch, seated on the roof in mid-afternoon sunshine. They eat inside the classroom when it rains. Iruma steals a chair from someone and sits across from Kiibo at his desk so they can face each other; their knees knock against each other underneath the desk while Iruma gives her big gestures and nearly falls out of her stolen seat with each new story told in painful detail. He still listens, he just voices his dissent more often than not, now that they have an audience.

 

When they sit on the roof, though, bathed in that simmering sunshine, it’s much more quiet. Iruma thinks he likes it better that way, without her having to talk louder to drown out the noise of the rest of the class. She thinks he prefers to have a more open area to breathe and think. She knows for certain he’d rather just sit in the quiet and think. He’d probably be more suited to hanging out with Shuichi, because they’re both quiet like that. She knows he’d rather sit by himself and process the day. But at the same time, she thinks that’d get incredibly lonely. Not just for her, because she knows her only friends were in him and Gonta, but also for him. One can only be alone with their thoughts for so long before things start going in circles. 

 

So every time she chases him down in the hallway, and he gives that tiny little frown he always gives, she tries not to let it get to her head. He’s too polite to tell her to go away, and she’s far too clingy to even consider leaving on her own. And so they stick together. Occasionally they’ll have to spend some time apart. Mainly for Kiibo’s sake. And that’s alright by Iruma! So long as he doesn’t up and leave her, she’ll be fine. 

 

And he doesn’t. 

 

They spend their first year of highschool sitting closer and closer to one another. Halfway through the year is when their knees began knocking against each other’s. They spend this time well. The conversations aren’t necessarily meaningful, but they don’t really need to be. They just enjoy the company. And while Kiibo gets annoyed at her a lot, which is fair, he still likes to have her around. Despite the gross things she says, she is genuinely helpful. Especially with math and science. Kiibo definitely isn’t stupid in them either, but sometimes outside opinions help a lot more. Specifically because Kiibo tends to overthink almost everything. 

 

Their first year ends, and they’re saying goodbye to a favored upperclassmen of theirs together. It’s sad to see Chiaki Nanami go, because losing any member of the robotics club just feels like a heavy loss. But Chiaki promises to talk to them as much as she can while she’s off to pursue her gaming competitions. Iruma doesn’t expect her to get back to them at all, judging from the almost apologetic voice Chiaki supplies them with. But Kiibo’s eyes are sparkling with a hope she doesn’t want to even dream of crushing. So she doesn’t. Chiaki says the moment reminds her of when she had to say goodbye to Miaya Gekkogahara only a year prior. The remnants of Miaya still exist, but Iruma knows they’re empty and meaningless without the presence to back it up. 

 

Chiaki leaves. 

 

Iruma and Kiibo slide out the double doors of the school building into summer vacation. The heat is oppressive and sweltering, and the air conditioning in Iruma’s home keeps breaking, but her father won’t let her anywhere near the AC unit to fix it. So instead, she invades Kiibo’s house. 

 

He’s startled by her appearance the first couple times. Opening up the door to her in a bathing suit top and shorts with her hair tied up into the messiest and most impractical bun he’s ever seen in his life, holding out a gift (the first time it was a portable fan), and shoving her way into his house uninvited. Everytime she’d come over prior to that had been planned and premeditated and mainly for studying purposes. This was different. He gets used to it, eventually, as he always does, and the company grows on him. Normally he’d spend his vacations alone. She knows this because he told her once while they were up on the roof. In fact, he often shares his more personal information while up there on the roof. Iruma files that away as another reason to never mention the call to the edge to him. 

 

They spend some of their summer locked up in his room. Her whining about the heat despite his functioning air conditioning, and him attempting to get some work done for personal projects and stuff for the robotics club. He gives up somewhere along the line, and they fall into a conversation somehow. Iruma never really knows how they end up getting along so well, since they tend to butt heads often, but she couldn’t complain. He was nice. He was a nice person. 

 

Their conversation diverts to swimming. Kiibo admits that he has no idea how to swim. Iruma offers to teach him. He, smartly, declines. Iruma pouts at that, but she insists they go to the community pool in his nice neighborhood. She understands the trepidation, of course she does, but just because she understands it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

 

“You don’t even have to go in! You can just roll up your prude pants or some shit and stick your feet in only and sit on the side! I’m not goin’ to a community pool all by myself, that’d be so weird. And it’s not even  _ my _ community.” She practically wails, acting like a child just because she can and that’s what works with him. Sometimes. She hopes. 

 

He sighs, clearly already tired of her. But he agrees. And that’s all that matters in the moment. Iruma cheers at it, happily explaining to him her plan for it all. He goes along with it, at least for now. Then they set that all aside. They talk, about robotics club and Chiaki Nanami and who they think Miaya Gekkogahara might have been. They talk about who might join in their future years, trailing back to their rooftop discussions and retracing paragraphs they’ve said before. 

 

Neither of them mind the repetition though, because talking about the future is their favorite thing to do. Kiibo likes the theoretical aspect of it, the “What If?” questions that get him talking for hours on end about how this maybe could play out and what that maybe could mean. Iruma just likes to have him talk so much about something he clearly cares about. He’s a dork, a downright dork, but he’s a cute dork who can talk to her about robots and engineering. So she talks about the future with him. She feeds into the maybes and the What-If questions. She doesn’t notice how late it gets until he mentions it to her. 

 

Internally she panics at the time, because that means she’s probably missed the train. Outwardly, she only swears and says goodbye to Kiibo with a parting hug, before sprinting out the door. She know full well the train station will be closed when she gets there, but she goes anyways, just to make sure. Like she predicted, it was. So she walks home in the summer heat, with the stupidest, biggest, most dorky smile on her face. And she loves it. 

 

She takes the morning train to his house, after spending a night sweating in her room with the windows open, and wakes him up early. They don’t have to go to the pool for a couple hours. It’s not even open at the time she wakes him up. But she knows he likes to be extra prepared for everything, since he’s a worrywart, so she gets him up early anyways. His father had let her in through the front door, and had only looked mildly concerned about the amount of obscenities leaving her mouth, so that meant he was pretty okay in her book. 

 

Kiibo awakes with a start to Iruma’s cackling laugh, and her basically tugging him out of his bed. It’s not the most pleasant awakening he’s experienced she’s sure, but it’s more fun that way for her. 

 

In the end, they make it to the pool. Kiibo only sits at the edge and talks with Iruma, who’s happy to cool off, and they both have a good time. Iruma pulls him into the water towards the end, which he doesn’t appreciate. But she does manage to sort of teach him how to swim. It’s a doggy paddle, but it helps. He seemed happy about it at the time, which in turn made her happy. 

 

They both walk back to his house dripping with pool water and the smell of the chlorine is sickening, but they’re laughing so much it’s hard to vomit. Kiibo’s father chides him for getting the wooden flooring wet, but they put towels down and it ends up okay. Their hair gets all gross and crusty from the pool water and Iruma slips on the kitchen tile more than five times while going to get them both popsicles but that’s just fine. That’s what made it feel like fun. 

 

They spend the rest of their summer like this. Iruma goes over to his house in the early morning by the train, they spend the day at the community pool while she teaches him how to swim, they go home while the sun is dipping low against the skyline, they dry off at Kiibo’s house with fluffy towels on hardwood floors and puddles on the kitchen tile from water still clinging to Iruma’s hair, and Iruma walks home late in the evening. She gets used to missing the train. She gets used to the route from his pocket of neighborhood, to hers, miles away, but close enough nearby. 

 

Sometimes she’d stay over, sleep on his floor with just a pillow and blanket and keep him up all night with conversations he’d rather not think about. She ends up leaving a lot of clothes over at his house just in case it got a little too late for her to walk home. He has a drawer set aside for her now, which feels really great, actually. Her presence feels less like an invasion and more of a return to a second home or something equally cheesy.

 

They enter their second year of highschool with something akin to a friendship. Their rooftop talks feel much more personal, and their rainy day talks are much more engaging to their sneaky classroom audience. Iruma doesn’t forget the call to the edge of the roof. She still breaks off in the middle of her sentences sometimes, staring off at the ledge, wondering what it’d be like to slip past the chain link fence and just let herself drop to the cement. She can’t help it. 

 

They find their spots as president and vice president of the robotics club in their second year of highschool. Kiibo is obviously the president, and Iruma is, respectfully, the vice president. It works for them. They find what they intend to do when they grow up, they figure out plans on which school they’ll go to, which ends up being the same one. They talk about moving in with one another in an apartment because it’s better to live with someone you know, and it’s cheaper to live off campus. 

 

They’re rooftop talks grow long and winding. Sometimes they get so deep into a conversation the bell rings for the end of lunch, and neither of them have finished their food. Occasionally they’ll miss the bell for the end of their lunch period, and they’ll return late to the sound of their classmates snickering. Mostly from Ouma. Kiibo doesn’t seem to understand it all that much, and Iruma doesn’t do much to dispel the rumours herself. Their lack of a reaction makes it less entertaining, which is good, because they don’t have to think too hard about the nature of their relationship. 

 

Iruma falls in love hard and fast, and she’s pretty sure just about anyone could fall in love with Kiibo during a summer like that. If they couldn’t, they were heartless. He was just too sweet for his own good. And interested in the same things she was, only with the financial backing for it. He got actual supplies while she raided junkyards and dumpsters and stole from mechanic shops. But she was fine with just staying friends. 

 

Romantic or not, keeping Kiibo around was her main goal, even if her ego made her incapable of admitting that. Their knees knocked together more often now. He didn’t seem so uncomfortable with it these days. He was less tense on their train rides. He’d give her engaged responses. He seemed a little desensitized to her vulgar speech patterns and innuendos. It was fun! It was great! He even opened up a little more to their other classmates too! It made Miu’s heart all warm and disgusting and gross. She hates it but she loves it. 

 

And then, merely a third of the way through their second year of highschool, Chiaki Nanami dies. 

 

It’s sudden, and there’s a huge mystery surrounding her death, but it was clear she was attacked and murdered, brutally, by  _ someone _ .The detectives all seem baffled in the room they sit in, all smoking while seated at a round table and tapping at the case file and agonizing over it. Iruma remembers looking over her shoulder with pure fear as Kiibo was brought into another room for questioning. He was shaking so badly. It makes Iruma’s stomach churn just thinking of it. 

 

They’re all released so late, but Iruma doesn’t see Kiibo outside as she’s driven away back home by her parents. It only serves to amplify her worry. 

 

Kiibo doesn’t get on the train, the day after they’re questioned by the police. Iruma hadn’t bothered to bring her school bag on with her, but she’d gotten dressed just in case he did show up. 

 

He didn’t. 

 

She makes a split second decision and hops off of the train mere seconds before the doors slide shut. And then she walks from there. The winding trail from the train station to his house feels heavier now. Her feet drag across the concrete. And it’s here that Iruma is reminded of the drop from the top of the school building down to the ground. It’s the first time she’d experienced the lure to the edge when there wasn’t even an edge in sight. It frightens her, and she shakes herself out of her own trance, walking faster to Kiibo’s house and trying her damn best not to cry. 

 

When she knocks on the door, Kiibo’s father answers. There’s something anguished lingering beneath the laughter lines at the edges of the man’s eyes. He lets her inside the house swiftly, asking if she needs anything. She says that she only needs to talk to Kiibo and make sure he’s okay. She doesn’t say it in those exact words, but the meaning gets across just fine. 

 

She goes up the stairs to his room slowly, on feet much more quiet than she’d ever been in her life. The door creaks the same way it always does when she opens it, peering into the early morning darkness of his bedroom. She knows he’s awake, has been awake, from the way he peers out from under the blanket up at her. She doesn’t turn on the light. He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and Iruma walks over to his bed. She wishes she could say something stupid or funny or vulgar to make him react and make it all better but there was no getting over it, especially not now. They held Kiibo in that room for far longer than they did Iruma, and she doesn’t want to think about the things they said to him or showed him or whatever. So instead of thinking, or talking, she just sits down next to his bed, legs crossed on the floor, and holds his hand. 

 

He seems confused for a while, until she squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back. He soon gets it, and stops trying to talk with all the tears and the gross disgusting mucus that come with sobbing that hard in the way. They stay like that for a long while. Kiibo falls asleep before Miu does. Neither of them had gotten much rest the night before. Miu herself isn’t far behind, clutching his hand tight and leaning her head against his mattress. 

 

She wakes with afternoon sun peering through the blinds and blanket on her back. She assumes Professor Iidabashi put it on her, and reminds herself to thank him later with a gift or something. These people have been too nice to her for her not to return the favor somehow. 

 

Kiibo is still asleep, with his hand clasped tightly onto hers. Any other time, she’d be happy to just stay and bask in it, but she has to call her parents and let them know she’d have to stay over for a couple days. She’d done it plenty of times over the summer when she wasn’t needed, so she may as well actually put it to good use. 

 

She detaches herself carefully from his hand, and stands up. Her ass and her knees hurt from the position she’d slept in, so she stretches herself out, wincing as her spine pops. Her feet pad a little less quietly on the floors this time around, and she ends up using the bathroom before even going downstairs to call her parents. 

 

Her parents take it well, not yet knowing the full extent of the situation, and Iruma gets to stay over for a couple days. She has plenty of outfits left over at his house from the summer, so it’s fine. She changes into the chosen casual clothes, and puts her school uniform in the wash alongside the rest of laundry, before starting up the washing machine. Everytime she’d stayed over before she ended up doing some form of chores for them, as payment for simply being there. Kiibo was always confused by it, and Professor Iidabashi seemed more embarrassed than anything else. 

 

She doesn’t mind it, though, doing chores and things for them. It’s good to feel useful. She likes it. So she ends up doing the dishes as well. And then vacuums the place. And then she takes the laundry out and folds it. And then she puts it away. And then… she just keeps going. 

 

She goes back to Kiibo’s room once she can’t think up anymore things for herself to do, feeling tired and a little more appreciative of Kirumi Toujo from their class. Kiibo is still asleep, all the snot and salted tears having long since dried up on his pillow. She lifts his head and flips it for him, for hygienic purposes, since he was pretty concerned with that. Then, she sits down on the floor, legs crossed, and holds his hand. 

 

He wakes up the next morning. He’d overslept and he felt groggy and disoriented and sick to his stomach, but Miu makes him drink tea anyways. And then she makes him eat soup. They don’t talk much. They don’t need to. The communal silence is enough to telegraph the grief. 

 

So she stays over for a week. 

 

They go back to school together. He seems more withdrawn and quiet, and Miu tries her best to make up for the silence. She talks more, louder, with more enthusiasm, trying hard and harder to be a sufficient distraction. It doesn’t work at first during the first week where they’re only just returning. They attend Chiaki’s funeral, somber and reserved. Iruma doesn’t notice the fact that none of Chiaki’s classmates are there. But Kiibo does. He tells her that while they’re leaving, while Chiaki’s body is disappearing in thick black clouds of smoke from the crematorium. Iruma tries harder the next week to make him feel better. It doesn’t work. 

 

But then, on the third week, it does work, and he slowly grows back into himself. 

 

Their rooftop talks are even quieter now, but they feel more sincere. 

 

They grow closer, and their knees knock against one another. 

 

The world is slowly turned on it’s head during the last legs of their second year. 

 

They spend this summer trapped inside of Kiibo’s house watching with fear as things grew more and more violent. Iruma can’t just walk home anymore, she either has to make it to the train, or stay the night. She ends up staying the night more often than not, heart fluttering with more fear than she can take. Bombs drop, people scream, people die, her neighborhood is practically in shambles, her father won’t let her fix their car and they don’t have the money to hire someone else to just make it better. It feels like too much all at once. 

 

They cling to one another tightly in the shelters while the raids happen, while windows are broken in and people are found and dragged out into the streets to be beaten and slaughtered. None of it makes any sense. All of Chiaki’s former classmates went missing. Nothing made any sense. It was scary. Iruma was more scared than she ever had been. 

 

They start their third year of highschool shaken and bruised and jumpy. Iruma is paranoid, and stocks up on as much food as she can. Kiibo is more aggressive, he pulls away more, he’s more drawn in on himself. It feels like they’ve taken so many steps backwards from where they were before. The rest of their class was under the very same stress. Kirumi wasn’t coming to class at all anymore. Neither was Korekiyo. And neither was Tsumugi. 

 

They can’t go onto the roof anymore, partially because of the fear, and partially because it’s now against the rules to eat outside. So their rainy days are now their everydays. Their food is bland and canned and soupy. The industrial noises of the city their school resides on the outskirts of have never felt more unwelcoming. They can’t help but hold each other’s hands and let their knees knock together for support. They need it. Snickers be damned.

 

Their third year comes to a close early, with operations coming to a slow halt. Provisions are running out, water is running out, people are running out. But the violence isn’t. None of it is. The drastic turn still gave them whiplash. Everything had felt okay, it was fine, they were alright, and then suddenly no one was fine. Nothing felt real. 

 

On their last day, they’re locked inside the school for hours, stomachs empty and aching, while the raging man outside in the hallways shouts echo around them. Bullets fire for hours, screams clamber into their ears for hours. They cling to one another tightly, hands clasped and locked together. Ouma doesn’t snicker this time. 

 

When the man is finally dragged away, and it’s safe to leave again, the sun hangs low in the sky, painting everything purple and red and orange. Iruma drags Kiibo up the steps, past the warning signs, and onto the roof. Her hands shake so bad, and it makes Kiibo sick to watch. They stop at their usual spot, right where they’d eat lunch together under a sky much more blue than the one they were looking at now. 

 

“Remember on the train, when I’d stop talking at the bridge?” She asks, staring off the edge of the roof. It was so tempting. After today? After this year? It was so tempting. 

 

“I do.” Kiibo responds, eyes trailing to her curiously. He’s getting his answer. But somehow he feels like he doesn’t want it anymore. 

 

“I just… fuck I don’t know. Every time I’m at someplace high I feel the need to jump. To fall. And just see what it feels like. It’s stupid. I don’t even want to jump but… At this point it feels like it offers so much more than whatever shit we’re getting dealt.” Miu stumbles over her words, fumbling for the right thing to say. But right doesn’t exist with this topic, not at all, and there’s no good way to go about it. 

 

The strike of realization that crosses his features, the worry, makes her upset to have even spoken. But to her surprise, he just squeezes her hand tighter. The world had grown so much worse since the last time they’d been up here. Everything had grown so much worse. 

 

And so they slip out past the chain link fence. 

 

_ Kiibo feels guilty for not noticing and finding a better spot for lunches.  _

 

They watch as Kiibo’s hat is brushed away in the swirling wind. 

 

_ Iruma feels guilty for not being honest about her feelings towards him. _

 

They take deep breaths, feet reaching the edge of the roof. 

 

_ Kiibo starts to cry.  _

 

They’re smiling.

 

_ Iruma can’t help but cry too.  _

 

They tip over, together. 

 

_ They don’t know how to feel anymore. Is it for better or worse?  _

 

_ What about their futures? _

 

And watch as the concrete rushes up to meet them. 

  
  


**The Call of the Void**

**Author's Note:**

> i was vaguely inspired by this post: http://hakusotorakugaki.tumblr.com/post/166419957084/%E5%B1%8B%E4%B8%8A  
> because to me, it always looked like they were jumping off the roof  
> im unsure of the original context for the picture, but thats what i took away from it  
> so i made myself an excuse to write that scenario, and rolled with it  
> hmu at http://mintyfreshtodeath.tumblr.com if u liked this cause god knows im afraid to share it with my friends
> 
> here are some songs i listened to while writing this as well, just because:   
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0YMty2YFn5ewKXZsghzVXVaVNWvZKn5l


End file.
